


if you give it a name then it's already won

by PaperRevolution



Series: outer-space mover [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Brother Feels, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 16:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: Space AU. Maglor tries to talk to Maedhros about what happened whilst he was held captive on the prison-planet Angband. Maedhros doesn't have the words for this conversation.





	if you give it a name then it's already won

**Author's Note:**

> 1.) Warning for references to sexual assault. Nothing is said outright, but the implication is fairly blatant, and is the focus for pretty much most of this scene, so.  
> 2.) Further warning for discussion of/portrayal of post-traumatic stress. (What else can one expect from a post-Angband Maedhros scene, honestly?)

Maglor finds his elder brother sitting on the cold floor in the blocky shadow of a crate of spare rotator parts, surrounded by the huffing and clicking and thrumming of the ship’s mech deck.

As loudly as he dares, Maglor clears his throat. Maedhros, who is sitting with his long legs drawn up, knees pulled to his chest, looks up at him.

“Hey,” says Maglor, softly. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” asks Maedhros, predictably, with that shuttered look on his face.

It occurs to Maglor belatedly that standing like this, looming over his brother, might not be the best way to begin. Belatedly, he folds himself into a crouch and then sits, legs crossed like his Aunt Lalwen’s when she’s meditating. He releases a breath. Truthfully, the churning of machinery down here in the heart of the ship unnerves him, but he can see its appeal for Maedhros, for whom background noise is now a requisite distraction.

“Turukáno says you and Findekáno aren’t talking.”

Maedhros’ eyes pull wide. “Finno told him that?”

Shrugging, Maglor picks at a loose thread at the hem of his shirt. “Turukáno notices things.” He pauses for a moment, takes a breath, and then prompts cautiously: “So…What happened?”

“Nothing happened. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

Something in Maglor’s chest tightens. “Maitimo.” And then his brother winces, and he’s furious with himself again. “Maedhros.” The name falls clumsily from his tongue; Maglor has never liked it, never liked the noncommittal sibilance of that last syllable. But that is who he is now.

“It’s all fine,” there’s a slightly manic hitch in his voice. “It’s all abso-fucking-lutely fine! Finno’s got things to do; he’s busy being Acting Lieutenant and all that. What, d’you think I’m going to trail around after him like a lost kid because I’m—what was it that Dad basically implied the other day?—oh, yeah, a useless sack of shit?”

Maglor inhales sharply. “That’s not—Dad doesn’t mean—”

“He called me ‘broken’, Makalaurë,” Maedhros says hoarsely. His eyes are hollow, by turns fixed and wandering, ringed by sleepless shadows.

“He doesn’t mean that. He knows that’s not true; he’s seen you working yourself half to death in training. He knows you’re making—”

“If you say the word ‘progress’, I’m going to throw something. At your head, preferably.”

Under very different circumstances, Maglor thinks, he might have laughed at that. Instead he asks, gently:

“Why are you and Finno avoiding each other?”

Maedhros groans, shutting his eyes and letting his head fall back against the wall behind him. “Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

“And I’m telling you everything’s fine!”

Releasing a long breath, Maglor leans forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “Come on, Maiti—Maedhros. You know I can see that’s not true. You’re sitting down here on your own in the dark—”

“What if I like sitting down here on my own in the dark?”

Maglor raises an eyebrow. “For someone who has a habit of trying to sequester himself when things get rough, you are shockingly bad at being by yourself. If you’re not with us lot, then you’re with Finno, and if you’re not with Finno, then you’re on the commlink having verbal sparring-matches with Findaráto over politics and whatnot, or trying to broker an alliance with bloody Doriath, or god knows what else. The only time you’re not relentlessly seeking other people’s company is when things get really bad, which is exactly when you need it the most.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then Maedhros, without lifting his head or opening his eyes, says irritably:

“You should put that in a card. Or on one of those ‘words to live by’ posters you like so much.”

Frustration blooms like pressure in Maglor’s chest. “For Gods’ sake—I’m trying to help you!”

Abruptly, Maedhros sits up straighter. “I don’t want your help! I just—I just need—I just want—”

Something inside him seems to crack. His shoulders sag, and all the lines of tension in his face ebb away and now he just looks empty. Which is worse. A million times worse.

And then:

“He knows,” he says, barely audibly, looking blankly at Maglor.

The silence churns like static.

“He knows,” he repeats in the same quiet, flat voice. “After Irissë came back—we argued. And I—I didn’t tell him, but he figured it out. I know he figured it out, and the way he looked at me—”

He breaks off abruptly, swallowing his words on the snag of an indrawn breath.

“Listen,” there are shards of glass in Maglor’s chest and in his throat but he keeps his voice soft. “You have to talk to him about this.”

The tension is back in the set of his face, hard lines and sharp angles. “I can’t.”

Maglor holds his gaze. “He’s not going to judge you.”

“That’s why he’s avoiding me, is it?” Maedhros lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Because he’s so busy not-judging me.”

“I think,” Maglor pauses. Thinks. Weighs his words. “I think he’s just scared. Of hurting you. He doesn’t know what to do. Talk to him, Mae. He just needs to understand. Tell him what you need.”

In the quiet that follows, Maedhros shuts his eyes again, letting out a shaky breath. 

“I’m scared,” he says then, baldly.

This admission hits Maglor like something solid, fills him with a helpless weightlessness as though the floor has suddenly dissolved beneath him. He has to shut his own eyes briefly and then open them again.

“I know,” he says simply, “But you’re good at doing things even when you’re scared. You always have been.”

And Maedhros looks at him.

“I don’t think either of us,” he says, “Are what we ‘always have been’ anymore, are we?”


End file.
